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Published: November 29th 2012
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Puerto Madryn
Veiw back from the pier Arrived early in the morning at Puerto Madryn bus station and made our way to our hostel. We were greeted by the enthusiastic owner Gaston who has a mind full of local information regarding trips to see the whales, sea lions, seals and penguins.
Our first outing was on bikes we also had the company of a young Englishwoman to the seal santary this was quite a hard going as most of the way was along a deep gravel road with quite a few cars zooming pass causing thick clouds of dust which we then had to cycle through. However the seals were a delight to see and watch there was even a couple of Elephant seasl in amongst them. The seals come to the beach after spending several months at sea, where they mate, the females give birth,care for their babies and rest while the males seems to only rest and screech ( this sounds like someone vomitting) at other male seals who dare pass too near their harem.
On our way home we stopped at the Eco museum this had very good exhibits explaining in clear detail the changing weather effects and the impact this has on
Ali and mates
best to let sleeping dogs lie the sea environment and sealife. What was funny there is a glassed viewing room with comfortable sofas and many interesting books to read/ look through. We sat there looking out to sea hoping to spot a whale and flicked through books while waiting, however after the quite trenuous bike ride in about 30 mins our heads were drooping and we all nodded off in the warm sunlight and dozed for at least 45 minutes or so thus making our visit a fairly long one !
Next day we hired a car and with our new companion we drove to Punte Tomo this took us along a gravely track to where the Magelanic penguins were living, they had arrived 3 weeks earlier to mate. When were arrived they sitting on the eggs in nests dug into the ground like small hollows some were under bushes. Sometimes a couple of penguins would stroll pass, but mostly they were all peacefully sitting on thier nests.
A fellow traveller in Bariloche had given us a tip about being able to see close up sea Elephants on a beach near to where the penguins are, by now we had also meet up with
Punta Lomo
Sea Lion colony (the big lighter coloured one is a female elephant seal) another car full of people staying at the same hostel as us. We told them about the sea lions and sea elephants, they said they wished to follow us, so a small convoy of cars continued to drive further along the gravel road for another 12 km to this speical beach. On our arrival there were several groups of sea elephants on the beach. With the beach master sea elephant( the dominate male) with his female harem along with the baby seals. In the sea were two young male sea lions were swimming up and down the waters edge, this caused the beach master seal great distress who then would screech and try to get to these pair to warn them off, when moved he would simply flop on top of the mum seals who screeched back at him, he would also flop on top of the small baby seals too it was quite painful to watch at times.
It was suggested we drive to Gaiman a small town just outside Trelew and Puerto Madryn. These towns were where the first Welsh settlers moved to from Puerto Madryn. The convoy continued along the gravel road to Trelew where the
Punta Tumbo
Magellanac penguin on a egg direction started to get a little difficult to find luckily a fellow trip friend was able to ask a local man the directions to the town Gaiman which is famous for their Welsh Teas. After driving around the small town we eventually found the Welsh tea room which is decorated with Welsh memorabilia the tables were covered with quaint floral table clothes, the delicious Welsh tea of sandwiches, homemade cakes, scones and jam and the famous traditional Welsh fruitcake Torta Negra were served in china crockery. The freshly brewed tea was a delightful treat to the English in the group
We hired a car and with a american couple drove to Peninsular Valdés and the Reserva Faunista, from the town of Puerto Pirámides we took the boat tour out into the bay to see some of the two thousand Southerh right whales that breed in the area, the whales are distingtive by the barnacle like growths which cover their bodys and like our finger prints are unique to each whale, having never seen whales in the wild before we were amazed to see the 60 ton mothers and 5 ton at birth babys swimming around, under and up to
Punta Tumbo
Magellanic penguin the boat, the babys were as curious about the boat as we were about them, on the way back to port we passed the lazy seals on the shore.
Desperate to see the Peninsular Valdes Orcas we hired the car again and with a German couple set out at 6am the next morning for the two hour drive back to the peninsular where at high tide 8am the Orcas feed, this pod of Orcas (there are 17 of them, again distingtive by their white markings) are the only Orcas in the world that beach themselves to catch the seals (dinner time) if any of you have not seen the David Attenborough documentry on this you should, its quite a sight, we spoke to the ranger and he told us at birth the baby Orcas get a god mother who pushes the baby onto the shore to teach it the beaching trick, any way we arrived at 8 but apart from the sleeping seals and a lone lost penguin, there was no sign of Orcas, we waited for 6 hours, taking it in turns to watch while the others dozed in the sun (like the seals) and during our picnic
lunch there was a shout of "Orcas" from the cliff top and about 20 people sprang into action, dropping sandwiches, bags and shoes in a mad race to the viewing points, and a reward for the wait, two Orcas swimming back up the coast on the low tide to start the hunt again, we never saw the hunt but the seals are too cute to become whale dinner anyway.
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Pat Pride
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Wales and whales
I'm so jealous! This looks amazing! Glad the Orcas weren't hungry that day!